Oral Answers to Questions
Anneliese Midgley Excerpts(3 days, 11 hours ago)
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Ian Murray
This Government are putting money into Scottish towns to regenerate them. As we keep saying from this Dispatch Box, oil and gas will be with us for decades to come. The industry itself is making the transition, and we have to make sure that it happens, and happens for the benefit of workers in the north-east and all over Scotland. I am not even sure, however, that it is a transition that the hon. Lady and the Conservative party now back.
Anneliese Midgley (Knowsley) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Scotland (Ian Murray)
Following the spring statement, it was confirmed that the block grant for Scotland this year was a record £50 billion. That was no thanks to the SNP and Reform, which both voted against that massive funding boost for Scotland and want to scrap the Barnett formula that delivered it. Despite that record funding, the SNP still has no plan to get waiting lists down, when one in six Scots are stuck on an NHS waiting list and the educational attainment gap is growing by the day.
Anneliese Midgley
Despite the record funding provided by the Labour Government, the SNP plans to downgrade the neonatal intensive care unit at university hospital Wishaw, which could force the families of sick babies to travel as far as Aberdeen for treatment and support. Does the Secretary of State agree that the SNP cut should be reversed?
Ian Murray
As the father of an 18-week-old daughter, I am absolutely horrified by those proposals and I know that they will be causing anxiety for families across Lanarkshire. That is why it is so disappointing to see the SNP candidate in the Hamilton by-election back the plans to downgrade the Wishaw neonatal unit. The way to send a message to the SNP that that is unacceptable is to vote for Davy Russell tomorrow in the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election.